Tag: PC

Nerdy Musical Advent 2021 – 8th December – PC99/On the PC – Tom Smith

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On 8th December 2021

In Blog, Nerdy Music Advent

Sometimes taking an old song and rewriting it can get you something amazing, and this parody of Under the Sea from The Little Mermaid is amazing.

This song is from way way back, 1999 specifically, a time in which I was heavily involved in PC gaming, way more than I am now, heading off to LAN parties in Ipswich and London and this was a song we played quite a bit.

Its just filled with what now we would consider retro, which makes me feel far far too old now!

Also really do look into Toms music, he is one of the giants of the world of filk and has a ton of amazing songs, he is one performer I would really love to see live!

Bit of an Upgrade

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On 7th March 2021

In Blog

So the PC has had a bit of an upgrade, I basically had to buy a new case to accommodate the AIO.

The new case is a Corsair 4000X, and this is the first time I have had a higher end case since the early 2000s every case since then has cost not a lot and usually come with a PSU!

Anyway, the new case arrived, along with a cheeky CPU upgrade to a 5600X.

Myself and Megan decided to accelerate the program by which she ends up with a new PC, and I managed to score a decent second hand motherboard for her, so now all she needs is memory, a PSU, monitor and keyboard.

Hopefully in the next couple of months we can sort that out for her.

Anyway so I transplanted the computer into the new case, I took out the three included SP120 fans and replaced them with my ML120 fans, relocated one of the SP120s to the rear of the PC and reserved the remaining two SP120s for Megan’s future PC.

The motherboard then slipped in along with the new CPU and I fitted the AIO, then in went the memory, GPU and Capture Card, plus an internal USB hub I picked up as well.

Alas it did not go all that smoothly, although I was diligent and kept my BIOS up to date with the latest firmware, to get it to accept a Ryzen 5000 was to put back in the 3400G and run a special firmware update because when updating from a Picasso CPU to the latest firmware using instant flash, it doesn’t add in the instructions to run Vermeer CPUs, which is annoying.

But oh no a single update wasn’t enough, it required a further two firmware updates in a precise order for it to be able to boot into Windows!

I also decided to give it a clean install of Windows whilst I was at it, but it’s all up and running now, more effective than ever!

My mouse that I had ordered last year, and has been on back order finally came along with its mouse mat.

It’s a Corsair Dark Core Pro RGB and a Polaris with hard surface, I guess you could say I am a Corsair fanboy.

Achievement Unlocked:- Vaccinated!!!

I got my first dose of the Covid vaccine last night. I went to the Centre of Life mass vaccination centre with Lindsay, where we bumped into her sister Jane.

I got the Astra-Zeneca vaccine and oh wow the side effects are nasty, headache, sore neck and feeling very groggy.

But it’s gonna be worth it in the end, and I urge everyone to get it when they are offered it.

What I Am Modelling

The beginning of the week was a bit off, without my PC I felt very lost and kinda unable to really paint.

But in Wednesday I did finish off the Bloodmaster and Skulltaker for my Blades of Khorne.

I then moved onto a pair of Ghostkeels for my T’au, which I had been kind of avoiding, but I decided to crack on and get them done.

So what’s on my list going forward then?

  1. Zone Mortalis Terrain
  2. T’au XV104 Riptide x 3
  3. Sentinel Guard x 5
  4. Blood Angels Primaris Apothecary & Sanguinary Priest
  5. T’au KV128 Stormsurge
  6. German 81mm Medium Mortar Team & 7.5cm LeiG 18 Light Artillery
  7. Necron Warriors x 10 & Scarabs x 3
  8. Sagittarum Guard x 5
  9. Scourge Cruisers x 8 & Battlecruisers x 2
  10. German Heer Infantry Squad x 10 & Sniper Team

What I Am Reading

I started on Fury of Magnus by Graham McNeil and got it finished, and wow, what a novella.

Really tied up some loose ends and brought Magnus to where he ends up at the end of the siege quite nicely. Ironic that he places himself firmly on the side of Chaos, by doing what is fundamentally the right thing.

I then started on First Team by Robbie MacNivan, just got the first chapter done, gonna have a read tonight.

What I Am Playing

Sadly I got nowt played this week 🙁

What I Am Backing

Alhambra Roll & Write arrived, although via Hermes which made us nervous!

What I Am Cooking

On Friday myself and Megan made Smokey Chipotle Chicken Wings with Colcannon Baked Potatoes and Coleslaw which was rather nice.

A Cooling Nightmare

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On 1st March 2021

In Blog

I have decided to take the plunge and make a big update to the cooling for my PC.

The current cooling is fine, but the GameMax air cooler doesn’t give me room to fit anymore RAM because it overhangs the slot and I just want that but more control.

So I have invested in a Corsair H100i Elite Capellix AIO and a three pack of ML120 fans.

And reading that apparently I will need theee hubs to control these, I grabbed an internal USB hub, although I am not entirely sure how successful that will be if I am honest.

However, when it came to the install, it went very wrong!

When removing the CPU cooler, it pulled the CPU along with it, the fans have all been straightened and it’s seems fine, but well it’s a bit of a nightmare.

And of course the bloody AIO doesn’t fit in the case.

So me and Megan decided on a couple of things, we have bought a new case, a Corsair 4000X and decided to get my CPU checked out for damage, and in the meantime replace it with a 5600X.

It all arrives tomorrow, but it’s not the weekend I wanted to have.

What I Am Modeling

I started the week by putting on the desk, a German Heer Infantry Squad for Bolt Action.

These models I have had since they were released and I will be honest, they have been a little intimidating. I struggle with these guys being, well pretty much the ultimate bad guys.

I used Duncan’s late war painting guide as a basis and then deviated from there to make them more early war, and I am really happy with how they turned out, especially the bases.

I then jumped another thing up the list, this time it was the Necron Warriors and Scarabs, but these are extremely simple to paint.

I also worked on a Death Korps of Krieg Command Squad to try and get my scheme nailed down for them.

I think I am very happy with this, although I do worry that perhaps I let my work on the German Heer influence some of the elements of these, which is the opposite of what I wanted to do.

I may end up stripping and repainting these, I dunno.

Once these were done I then picked up Reikenor the Grimhailer and started to put paint on him, he is the first named character I have for my Nighthaunt and he is a very very detailed model.

I then went on a building splurge to get my next twenty planned project ready.

That took up most of Thursday and Friday, but my next twenty projects are built and awaiting being primed.

And then I moved onto a set of Sicaran Ruststalkers I got when the Skitarii were first released, so yeah they have been waiting to get painted for a while!

I then moved on to Skulltaker and a Bloodmaster for the Blades of Khorne.

What’s on the painting queue coming up then?

  1. Zone Mortalis Terrain
  2. T’au XV95 Ghostkeel x 2
  3. Blades of Khorne Skulltaker & Bloodmaster
  4. T’au XV104 Riptide x 3
  5. Sentinel Guard Squad x 5
  6. Blood Angels Primaris Apothecary & Sanguinary Priest
  7. T’au KV128 Stormsurge
  8. German 81mm Medium Mortar Team & 7.5cm LeiG 18 Light Artillery
  9. Necron Warriors x 10 & Scarabs x 3
  10. Sagittarum Guard x 5

What I Am Reading

I finished reading Rogue Untouched by Alisa Kwitney, which was really good and you can see my review here.

I have now started on Fury of Magnus by Graham McNeil.

What I Am Playing

As promised last week here is the video of our Star Wars: Squadrons stream.

On Saturday for Megan’s birthday, we played some games, starting with Camel Up, or is that Camel Cup!!!

Weirdly, I won, which was a nice change.

We then played Say Anything, which Megan won by 3 points, and I can’t wait to okay this again with a group of people.

What I Am Backing

I got my hands on the stuff from Remembrancers of the Australis Ultima Sector and I am really happy with these, just need to find a frame for the picture.

What I Am Cooking

For breakfast on Sunday I made Cheesy Grits with Smoked Sausage, it looks horrid, but tastes really nice.

Reorganising the Desk

By

On 17th November 2020

In Blog

With the RGB lighting in my PC, we decided that we wanted it on the desk and put it in the centre.

But this has had the effect of very much restricting my arm movement on the desk and has given me a few anxiety attacks as my claustrophobia got triggered by it.

So we decided that the rig would move to the end of the desk next to the printer, the reason for this was to make my mind a lot calmer, and let Megan see the pretty lights.

To do this I was gonna need a bunch of USB cable extensions, but we decided in the end it would be easier and cheaper to just order a USB hub and place that under the desk, it also freed up a bunch of USB ports in the back of the PC for other stuff.

So on Wednesday I took delivery of some cables for the monitors and the USB hub, and I moved the tower.

The USB hubs cable didn’t work so I had to send that back and a replacement was ordered, but I have a temporary one I am using for now.

So I was able to get the HDMI Extractor, the Video Capture Card power cables moved from the desktop USB Hub to the one that currently under the desk, which means I have more poets available in there.

Got to say it looks a lot nicer now, the desk looks a lot less cramped and move comfortable and I feel like I have more room.

The first of two new monitors arrived, I had ordered two but one was damaged in transit, but a replacement will be sent as soon as it’s back in stock.

It’s a Viewsonic XG2405, which is idea, it’s a 24” 1080p monitor with 144hz refresh rate, AMD Freesync and 1ms response time, so perfect for gaming.

It’s has ironically made the HDMI extractor redundant as it has a built in headphone jack, so yeah I guess that’s a bummer, but I didn’t think I would get these so soon.

The biggest pain in the bum is that the speakers on it are so much weaker than those on the TV I was using, to the point of being practically unusable.

So an alternative pair were sourced from Argos, a pair of Creative Pebbles, but annoyingly although advertised as V2s they are actually the much weaker V1s, so they were promptly returned.

So it’s back to the drawing board for speakers and I think I will wait until I get paid next and get a better pair then.

I can listen to music on an old soundbar and game sounds through my headphones.

At the same time I installed a new power extension tower to replace the four extension leads I had daisy chained off one another and was branded by Lindsay as a massive fire risk!

I did also order a couple more cables, a pair of micro USB cables, one to stretch from the USB capture card to the under desk USB Hub and another to replace my desk cable that is in very bad shape.

A USB A to B cable was also ordered for my Dymo Label printer so it reaches the hub properly. These arrived ahead of schedule so I was able to get me fitted and fantastically my set up is so much neater and tidier now.

All in all the desk area is now a lot better and a lot more ergonomic, Megan gets a view of the pretty lightshow and it’s easier for us to both watch things on the screen whilst downstairs.

What I Am Modelling

I started the week by priming the rest of the stuff to have the next ten projects ready to start.

And then I picked up the tenth project on the list, the Aeronautica Imperials Lightning Fighters, and they didn’t take very long at all.

I was also able to finish off the second Sigmarite Mausoleum I got from Mortal Realms, this has been worked on little by little over the past couple of months.

This gives me a complete set of the current Sigmarite Mausoleum, and really helps to bulk out the city of Esasa.

I then continued with the Palanite Enforcers and Subjugators and got them finished up Thursday night.

I also started work on the Lord-Aquillor and Lord Exorcist whilst waiting for layers of Contrast paint to fully dry.

But the Endless Spells for the Stormcast Eternals were finished first.

Followed by the Gryph-Hounds, no Alpha in this lot because I did two Alphas in the first batch. And then I got the Lord-Exorcist completed the same evening.

On Monday I finished the Lord-Aquilor, which now leaves me with just six Stormcast Models to paint.

I am now in a building focused bent, with a plan to get the next 15 projects worth of stuff built and primed, it’s not actually that much work as most of it is already done.

Got 4 kits left to build and I plan to prime them on Wednesday daytime.

So what’s in the plan coming up:-

  1. Zone Mortalis Terrain
  2. Blood Ravens Intercessors with Stalker Bolt Rifles & Inceptors x 3
  3. Death Korps of Krieg Grenadiers x 12
  4. The Grymwatch & Rippa’s Snarlfangs
  5. T’au KV128 Stormsurge
  6. Ork Megatrakk Scrapjet
  7. T’au Barracudas x 4 & Tiger Sharks x 2
  8. Nighthaunt Grimghast Reapers x 4, Glaivewraith Stalkers x 5, & Crawlocke the Jailor
  9. Death Korps of Krieg Death Riders x 10
  10. Nurgle Blood Bowl Team x 13

What I Am Reading

I started the week by listening to the Warhammer Adventures book, War of the Orks in audio format.

I know they are only kids books, but I am really getting into them!

I am now halfway through The Last Ritual, took me a little while to get into it, but it’s really good and very creepy.

What I Am Playing

I had a break from streaming most of this week, I need to regroup and figure out the strategy for doing it.

But we did have a game of Star Trek Adventures on Wednesday with the guys. And it was cracking good fun, we are playing again this week.

I have had a few games on Apex Legends, I just wanted to try out a Battle Royale game and Lindsay and Megan were negative about most of them as my Nephew plays them.

I have had four games so far and actually was on the winning team for the last one, although I have scored very few kills, because I really am pants at it!

What I Am Cooking

On Tuesday I made us Double Chicken Katsu Burgers, with Sesame Wedges, a Rice Vinegar Pickled Salad and Katsu Mayo on the side for dipping.

It was really nice, apart from the fact that Lindsay kept freaking out about the chicken. She has a real fear of eating undercooked chicken and she usually only ever eats chicken breast, but I used chicken thighs in these.

She kept almost throwing up when she was cutting into it, really knocked my confidence just as I am getting into the swing of cooking again.

I know she can’t help it, heavens knows she is super understanding if my autism making certain textures difficult for me to eat.

On Sunday me and Megan made Kansas City BBQ Chicken Wings, I marinated the chicken wings in my Kansas City BBQ sauce and Megan made a lovely bacon potato salad.

What I Am Spending

I have been asked to eliminate this section of the blog, there are reasons, but I think it’s best not to go into them at this time.

But regardless, I will be sharing what I have been spending much much less frequently and as said, this section is leaving the blog from this week.

The First Upgrade

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On 9th November 2020

In Blog

My PC has had its first upgrade, a discrete graphics card, specifically the EVGA GTX 1660 Ti XC Black Gaming.

I managed to get it for a bargain £217, it’s B-Stock with a few cosmetic blemishes but nowt that impacts what it does.

I had already set up the PCI-e 9 pin power cable on Sunday, so that was l ready to go.

I also took advantage of having the case open and optimised my cable management a bit more so it looked a bit better.

It was supposed to arrive on Wednesday but never actually arrived until Thursday annoyingly.

And weirdly, despite being a GTX card it says in the side that it’s an RTX card, but GPU-Z is clear, it is absolutely a GTX 1660 Ti, so I am guessing it’s been refurbished with the RTX heat sink, it is after all B-Stock.

The card just slotted in and is very short, but quite wide, taking up 3 slots, and has DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort sockets, I am going to be using the DisplayPort and HDMI sockets.

Once it was slotted in and attached to the case, I powered up the system and Windows installed drivers, but I downloaded the drivers direct from Nvidia to make sure I had the most up to date drivers possible.

In anticipation of its arrival I ran some benchmarks in Heaven using the APU on both High and Ultra settings and the results were ok for what it was as you can see below from the Ultra benchmarks.

But damn, when the GPU went it, oh boy did my performance shoot up, just compare those numbers. Bear in mind of course that right now I am running my system not even at 1080p.

So yeah, really pleased with this but I still need to power up some good games with it yet, might give Tomb Raider a go!

I have sold a few other bits and bobs this week and will hopefully be ordering a pair of monitors towards the end of the week.

Although stock levels mean that my first couple of choices are not gonna happen, but there is a very good third choice which is probably gonna happen.

I want an IPS panel monitor with at least 144mhz, but it’s got to be 24” to fit in the space and therefore is limited to 1080p.

I have seen a Viewsonic one, which fits the bill, I would prefer it if it had a built in USB, but alas it doesn’t.

What I Am Modelling

The week started with something secret so I can’t share photos of them until they are all done, but I am very happy with them!

Then I completed the Zone Mortalis Walls and Columns, was a long hard slog, but worth it in the end.

After they were done, I completed a squad of Death Korps of Krieg Engineers and their Hades Breaching Drill for Niki.

At this point I was going to be streaming, the Dreadscythe Harridans were up next but I wasn’t sure they would be all that engaging, so I jumped ahead and started in the Space Wolves Swiftclaws.

These got done fairly quickly as we recorded this months podcast and I think that’s all the outstanding Space Wolves I have to paint.

Then I picked up a few bits of scenery from Mortal Realms which were sitting under my desk, these were done to add to the city of Esasa.

After which I then turned my attention to the Dreadscythe Harridans, all 20 of them!

They weren’t as bad as I thought they would be and by Sunday they were all finished.

This allowed me to then turn my attention to some additions to my Necromunda stuff, specifically the Palanite Enforcers from Dark Uprising. That is 5 Engorcers and 5 Subjugators, plus a couple of Ambots.

On Monday I also did a little building to get me to the point where the next 10 projects were all ready just to paint. I plan on priming them tomorrow.

So what’s next for me then?

  1. Zone Mortalis Terrain
  2. Palanite Subjugators x 6, Palanite Enforcers x 5
  3. Stormcast Eternals Lord-Aquilor, Lord-Exorcist and Gryph-Hounds x 6
  4. Blood Ravens Intercessors with Stalker Bolt Rifles & Inceptors x 3
  5. Death Korps of Krieg Grenadiers x 12
  6. The Grymwatch & Rippa’s Snarlfangs
  7. T’au KV-128 Stormsurge
  8. Ork Megatrakk Scrapjet
  9. T’au Barracudas x 4, Tiger Sharks x 2
  10. Aeronautics Imperialis Lightnings x 3

What I Am Reading

Not much in the way of prose, but I did listen to a couple of audiobooks.

First was Sons of Behemat which was very good, really interesting to listen to.

And then I listened to Valdor: Birth of the Imperium and I am glad I did cause I spotted a few things I missed when reading it in prose.

What I Am Playing

Not much this week, The Witcher happened as normal, but I didn’t stream Bioshock as I had some recording to do for the podcast.

I also had a game of Carcassonne and Star Wars Squadron on Twitch, both of which were a lot of fun and were done to test out the NVENC Encoder on the graphics card.

What I Am Backing

Nowt, but the backerkit for Chai: High Tea was charged, we ended up grabbing a the acrylic tokens, bags and playing mat for it.

What I Am Cooking

Not much this week other than beans on toast a couple of times.

I did assist on helping make tea on Friday, when we made Indian Spiced Chicken Wings, served with green beans, naan breads and cous cous.

What I Am Spending

Not a lot this week, I bought some stickers for my PC case which arrived.

There is a reason for this, a bloke on a PC forum I lurk in started getting abuse from someone on eBay for putting a Windows 10 sticker on the PC he was selling. He had the fella quite upset and was threatening with the police arresting him for copyright violations.

Turns out the bully was selling similar systems but more expensive and was trying to terrify the competition.

I also bought my new monitors today, they are a pair of the Viewsonic XG2405 and will replace the 10 year old 720i TV I currently use and the 15 year old HP square monitor.

My requirements were for the monitors to be at least 1080p, have at least a 144Hz refresh rate, AMD Freesync and preferably an IPS panel, and if possible a USB hub.

Due to the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, PC parts and components have been in short supply and prices have remained high, the monitor I did have in mind, an AOC one, has been out of stock most places for months and those places that do have it in stock have added an average of £50 to the price of it.

So I went with the Viewsonic one, I haven’t had a Viewsonic monitor since the 90s and that was an amazing monitor. This particular monitor uses the same IPS panel as the AOC one, the only thing it doesn’t have is a USB hub.

So yeah that should arrive next week, in the meantime I ordered the cables to hook it up, because I am moving the rig and need longer cables than I have at home, so a 3m DisplayPort and HDMI cable have been ordered, along with a USB hub to be used instead of a bunch of USB extension cables.

The New PC

By

On 30th September 2020

In Blog

So I bought a new PC, well rather Megan lent me the money to do so, well half the money!

On Sunday I built the new machine, you can check out how I built it later in this post with a video we made of the build.

So let’s take a look at what went into the machine.

  • CPU:- AMD Ryzen 5 3400G
  • CPU Cooler:- GameMax Gamma 500 ARGB
  • Motherboard:- Asrock X570 Steel Legend
  • PSU:- GameMax RGB 550w Modular 80 Plus Gold
  • Memory:- Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro 2 x 8GB DDR4 3600
  • SSD:- Crucial P1 1TB x 2
  • Wi-Fi & Bluetooth:- Intel 7265 M.2
  • Case:- Kolink Aviator Gunmetal
  • Case Fans:- upHere PWM 120mm Rainbow x 5

A few compromises were made, the PSU was a little less powerful than I wanted 750w was my target to give me room to get a powerful graphics card eventually, but the budget restricted me to 550w. But given the kind of graphics card I am initially thinking of getting, this should be plenty powerful enough.

The case fans are set to a simple rainbow pattern, but that’s cool, they cost me £34 for six, so I am happy with that. Eventually the plan is to fit a proper controllable Corsair system in to the machine, but these will be perfect for now.

Because I do a lot of media heavy stuff with the podcast, I had wanted to go with 32GB of RAM, however the budget didn’t allow for that, so I have gone for 16GB now, with a plan to upgrade within the next year.

But these are all things are either purely cosmetic and are easily upgraded or added to in time when budget allows, in the meantime it’s gonna do me awesomely.

They memory was originally going to be Adata XPG Spectrix D60 RBG 2 x 8GB DDR4 but delivery turned out to be an issue and despite it being next day delivery when I ordered it, it would actually be mid October before I got it, so that was cancelled and a replacement ordered.

The case was picked specifically created because it had a 5 1/2 inch external bay, which is use for my Blu-Ray writer, and I actually still need that.

A salvaged windows key was purchased which was nice and cheap. And due to an ordering mixup, I have two NVMe SSDs instead of a single one, so plan is to use one for my O/S and most used programs and the other for games.

A couple of bits were taken from my old computer a 1TB HDD which contains my documents and stuff I am working on, a separate 2TB HDD which currently is used as a game drive, and the BRD drive of course. I also took the 2TB external HDD which is used to store my music on and plugged it into this.

The first lot arrived on Saturday, over five separate deliveries all from Amazon, three came with Amazon delivery folk, the case came with DPD and the CPU cooler came with the dreaded Hermes. Because our Hermes man doesn’t like ringing the doorbell, I ended up putting a sign in the door asking him to make sure he rang. As it was I was lucky as was loading the dishwasher when he pulled up so was able to grab it off him quickly.

The motherboard arrived on Sunday after taking a trip from Spain, along with the memory. I must admit to getting very worried as the memory took until 5am to ship, but luckily it just shipped from the Darlington fulfilment centre.

I did forget to order a set of antennas for the Wi-Fi adaptor and ordered them early Sunday morning.

The Build

The build took place on Sunday evening, the original plan was to prepare the case with the PSU and case fans the night before, but alas, my hands were not cooperating with me to do that!

I started off on Sunday morning by preparing the case, so I fitted the case fans, installed the PSU and moved over the drives from my old PC to this one.

The first thing we discovered, is that the interior has been significantly redesigned, it now has a PSU basement and the wiring for the USB sockets and case functionings is a lot better and no longer looks like it might get in the way of any ports on the top right corner of the motherboard.

It did mean that I was losing out in the RGB aspect of the fan, but it does mean that I was going to make sure it was pulling cool air from outside the case into it, thus making sure that it lasts longer. The original spec had no filter at the bottom so it would have had to drawn air from inside the PC.

Once the motherboard and memory arrived, I was able to crack on with that, and it was very fun.

First things first I fitted the CPU, being very careful with it, then I installed the memory, M.2 SSD and M.2 Wi-Fi module.

Lastly on the motherboard I fitted the cooler, the reason I did that last was because it’s fairly big and bulky and I didn’t want to have to work around it when fitting the other stuff.

Then I slipped the board into the case, and screwed it in, followed by attaching the necessary power and data cables.

Initially it didn’t POST, turns out the PSU isn’t capable of supplying the extra 4 pin CPU power supply. I know this is only really needed if I plan to seriously overclock the CPU, which I don’t but it was annoying.

So after removing that power connector, we were able to get the PC to POST successfully, and it runs very nicely. I did take the opportunity to turn the CPU cooler round so that we could see the lovely RGB lights.

Windows was installed via USB media, which I smartly prepared the night before. And when that was set up, I then connected up the extra HDDs one of which I smartly downloaded all of the drivers and other software I wanted as well.

But you can take a look at the build process hopefully later this week as I did video it all.

I did my best to make this the most attractive PC I have ever built, and with actual cable management to minimise dust issues.

The second M.2 drive arrived Monday along with the Wi-Fi antennas, so they were fitted then and as such are not on the video. I also had a spare 300GB HDD which I normally use as a scratch drive, I struggled to figure out how it went in the case on Sunday, but figured it out on Monday.

I also had a 2TB HDD, which I tried to fit, but it seems the drive is knackered and the PC refused to POST with it plugged in.

Future Plans

Short term, I need to make a couple changes to the desk, first, I need a under desk keyboard tray, because I use so much of my desk space for painting.

Medium term the plan is to add a discrete graphics card, I only need something that can handle 1080p gaming with a little streaming, so current thinking is something like an XFX Radeon RX570 8GB, MSI GeForce GTX 1660 Super or perhaps a MSI Radeon RX5500 XT 8GB or similar, that would do me just right, but if budget allows, I will spend a bit more.

This will then allow me to upgrade the processor to something a lot more powerful, which will be nice. The current processor was picked to allow me to initially go without a discrete graphics card.

The memory is gonna go up to 32GB , might seem overkill, but I want to do a lot more video work for the podcast. And I also want to add a proper video capture card as well to make streaming from consoles a lot easier, as well as making it so I can grab a DSLR for making video content.

And a big possibility for me is the addition of a soundcard. I know that soundcards are kinda redundant these days but I am a podcaster, and I need good sound quality. If the sound on the motherboard is good, I will stick with that, but in the back pocket the possibility of upgrading to a decent Creative soundcard is there.

But What About The Old PC

The old PC is well, a bit sore and sorry looking, but I have replaced the BRD drive with a plain Blu-Ray drive, cleaned it out, cleared it off and reinstalled Windows and a few other bits of software and it’s going to go be used by Megan’s mum for her paperwork. And being an early learning practitioner she has a lot of complex paper work to do, and my old machine will be perfect doing that for her.

So on Sunday morning before touching the new build, I took that apart, cleaned it out, put it back together in a much tidier set up. I then formatted the OS drive and gave it a clean install of Windows 10, along with giving it a Charlie Bears wallpaper for her.

As I had a spare RGB fan from my build, I decided to give her that, so I fitted that to the front and now she gets a lovely little light show when it’s in use.

What I Am Modelling

I started by having a little rest after the long hard job of painting Mortarion, and built the two starter warbands for Beastgrave, Grashrak’s Ravagers and Skaeth’s Wild Hunt.

And I also built the Azyrite Ruins from Warhammer Mortal Realms plus a set of Spirit Hosts I got with them as well.

The first models I painted were the Nighthaunt character models that come with Soul Wars, although these were actually from Mortal Realms.

I painted up a Knight of Shrouds on Ethereal Steed, a Spirit Torment, Guardian of Souls and Lord Executioner. My Nighthaunt scheme isn’t particularly sophisticated, but I am happy with it.

I then began work on the Adeptus Titanicus Titans, doing a total of five of them. A Warbringer Nemesis, two Reavers and two Warhounds, along with a Vulcan Megabolter for a Reaver.

Was very slow going but I managed to complete two Reavers Titans early Wednesday morning.

I was also finally able to finish off the priming of the Zone Mortalis terrain!

Be Wednesday night I finished the Warbringer Nemesis Titan and the two Warhounds.

So what does this leave my painting plan looking like for this week?

  1. Zone Mortalis Terrain
  2. 2. UCM Ships (4 Cruisers, 4 Frigates, 6 Corvettes, 2 Destroyers)
  3. Death Korps of Krieg Command Squad x 5
  4. Millitarium Tempestus Drop Force Imperartor x 5
  5. Palanite Enforcers x 10
  6. Stormcast Eternals Vanguard-Hunters x 5
  7. T’au Stealth Team x 3
  8. Blood Ravens Hellblasters x 15
  9. Grashrak’s Ravagers & Skaeth’s Wild Hunt
  10. T’au Strike Team x 10 & Sniper Drone Team

What I Am Reading

Been giving The Doom of Fallowhearth by Robbie MacNivan a read, and I am rather enjoying it.

What I Am Playing

Tonight I got 6 games of Coup in with Lindsay and Megan when we went to Meeple Perk for our tea, we each won two games each.

Video games wise, I had a little play on a Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and a quick game of Carcassonne but that’s about it.

What I Am Backing

Just the Remebrancers of the Australius Ultima Sector which features me as a card!

What I Am Cooking

For Friday wing night, I made Whiskey BBQ wings in the slow cooker. I had intended to make them bourbon wings, but we were mysteriously out of bourbon.

The accompaniments were not great however, Lindsay experiment with the mash, making it in the microwave, it was not very nice if I am honest.

And the other side was courgette fries, which I really disliked due to the big differences in texture, my autism reared it ugly head big time!

Megan did thicken the sauce the wings were cooked in as a sort of gravy, which was really nice, but it’s not pictured here.

On Saturday I made Smoky Pork and Boston Beans, was very nice, but next time I am going to make the beans an actual mix of beans rather than just cannelloni beans

And I cooked it in the Dutch oven covered, but the sauce was quite thin, so if I leave it uncovered next time hopefully the sauce will thicken a little.

We served it with corn bread for the real American taste!

What I Am Spending

Obviously all the gear for the PC build!!!

My foam for Beastgrave arrived, and well ahead of schedule, so that allowed me to build the models from the core set at long last and add them to my painting plan.

I also picked up a cheap set of bookends, just to secure the books on my top shelf in the office and stop them falling down all the time.

I won something, a copy of Legends of Zelda: Links Awakening for the Switch, but I already have a copy of this!!!

But that’s alright as I traded it in and bought Super Mario 3D All-Stars instead, which is brilliant as I have been wanting to get that. That was delivered on Monday.

I also did a swap with my pal Kev, we wanted each other’s tin plates from our Warhammer Mystery Box that we got from Half Moon Bay, so I sent him mine, he sent me his!

I also saw a killer deal for a pack of four smart plugs on Amazon, normally I go for TP-Link Kasa, but these had a £25 off voucher allowing me to pick them up for just under £15.

This allows me to smart up the bedside lamps and fan in mine and Lindsay’s room, leaving one spare for the Christmas tree, because that season is close approaching.

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